


Other reality

by GlowwormiK



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: After the war with Zarkon ended, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cuddly behavior, F/M, Memory Loss, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Mother-Son Relationship, drugged behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-13 04:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12976074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowwormiK/pseuds/GlowwormiK
Summary: After the war ended, Lotor can't reconcile with the fact that his mother is gone forever. He manages to find her behind the reality barrier, but is she really still the one he has been searching for? Coran might help the prince solve the moral dilemma. Or not.Basically, I was sick and depressed and needed an excuse to write senseless zargar cuddles.





	Other reality

Coran was walking along the corridors of the Castle of Lions. Today, it has been three decaphoebs and two quintants since the war ended. Since the terrifying day when Zarkon had reconnected with the Black Lion and was about to finish off the remaining paladins near the planet Naxzela. Since Haggar attempted to help him from the planet's surface and gathered on herself an amount of quintessence so big that it detonated spontaneously and created a wormhole between realities. Since paladins watched in horror how she got sucked into the black crater, her mouth open in one last silent cry of pain. Since the moment when Zarkon swooped the Lion into the crater without hesitation in a futile attempt to save his wife one last time. Since the crater collapsed, sealing off the two greatest villains the universe has ever known, together with the greatest weapon that ever existed, never to be seen again. Since the last time Voltron could be formed.  
  
The galra showed amazingly little resistance after the disappearance of their leader. Only few of them actually fought back, the majority preferred to give up. It did seem like the empire was, after all, relying on just one single man, and without his iron grip, it crumbled to pieces. Not that the universe suddenly turned into a magical paradise - collapse of the empire meant collapse of trade routes and infrastructure and brought famine for some planets and overproduction for the others. All the suppressed conflicts burst out tenfold, both between galra and the locals, and between each separate planet. Now, galra had to be saved from those they previously oppressed. Weirdly enough, the ones under attack were mostly families and civilians, while previous military men mostly setteled on planets without any major problems. Sometimes, Coran asked himself if vileness was truly lying in each and every heart.  
  
And yet, it was still much better then before. The paladins piloting the remaining lions did their best to help those in need, and the Blades proved themselves excellent comrades not just in combat. Prince Lotor was now trying to organize what has been left of the galra empire into a somewhat democratic entity, but he still kept close relationships with Voltron team. And Coran was walking along the corridors of the Castle each evening, just like before, just to make sure everyone was feeling okay.  
  
Under the door of Lotor's room, Coran saw light. This was weird, the galran prince wasn't supposed to be there. Coran knocked and opened the door. The prince was curled on his bed, his fingers gripping his hair. He looked up at Coran with mad, glassy eyes.  
  
"Lotor, what's wrong?" Coran asked in astonischment, but the prince just uttered a moan and kept looking through him, as if not noticing him.  
  
"Lotor?" Coran asked again, coming closer and sitting down on the bed.  
  
The prince jumped like a scared animal.  
  
"Go away!" he exclaimed. "You can't help me!"  
  
"Lotor..." Coran started, but the prince suddenly interrupted him, grabbing his shoulder.  
  
"Or maybe you can! Maybe you are exactly the right person!" he exclaimed feverishly. "You knew them before... before everything, right?"  
  
For some reason, Coran didn't need to ask who the prince was talking about. He swallowed down the heavy feeling that this conversation wouldn't end well.  
  
"Yes, Lotor," he answered slowly. "I did know them. Did something remind you of them? You can tell me. I sometimes..."  
  
Lotor was not in the mood to listen, though. He uttered a maniacal laughter.  
  
"Why tell?" he exclaimed. "Come, I'll show you."  
  
The next doboshes, Coran was being pulled and urged to hurry. Lotor pushed him into a space suit and put his own on, then hurried towards the head Sincline ship. It was only after they took off that Coran received an explanation.  
  
"I studied the place where she opened the wormhole," Lotor murmured feverishly into the communicator as he swooped away from the castle ship in a manner that resembled his father's too closely for Coran not to notice. "There are traces of disturbance, minimal yet still recordable. I followed them, Coran. I found where she went... where they went."  
  
Coran gasped. Can it be?  
  
"I wanted to save her. From him... She would be different without him, for sure... She remebered, she did, I just know that..."  
  
Lotor's speech turned into inoherent mumbling.  
  
Dear boy, Coran thought, suddenly suppressing an urge to facepalm. Dear, loving boy. No, she wouldn't be different if she were alone. She was never different. You can't save her from herself...  
  
"But I can't save her!" Lotor yelled suddenly, making Coran jump. "There is nothing to save!"  
  
Before shocked Coran could answer, Lotor turned the hyperdrive on and after several ticks they reappeared near the ruins of what was earlier the most fortified planet in the this sector. Now, the terrible force of the detonated wormhole reduced Naxzela to cosmic ash and a cloud of asteroids.  
  
"We're here!" Lotor announced, and Coran saw the blue film of purified quintessence cover the ship.  
  
"Wait!" he exclaimed. "We can't go through realities without having warned someone!"  
  
Lotor couldn't be stopped any more, though. The white light light of the interreality space blinded Coran as the ship traversed the barrier, and then it was gone all of the sudden. The ship was now orbiting an unknown green planet. This is Naxzela in the other reality, Coran understood. Lotor in his seat exhaled and it seemed to Coran that he heard a sob, but the prince's hand was as firm as always when he landed the ship and ejected them in a miniature travel pod.  
  
The planet looked weird on the surface, but Coran couldn't quite figure what was wrong. It looked like a usual uninhabited jungle world - huge trees closed around narrow paths Lotor lead the pod to, thick vines almost formed a net, covering the sky and turning the path into a tunnel. It wasn't until Coran exited the pod and felt sticky wet heat envelope him that he noticed what was wrong. This world was way too colourful and peaceful. Coran bent down to touch the grass and found it unrealistically soft and springy, like a matress. There were no angry bugs that every jungle has, no predators were visible in the tall grass, only weird-looking frogs hopped around on the wet ground that slurped with each step. Colourful creatures glided from one tree to another, uttering screeching sounds and presenting their bright feathers, only rivaled in beauty by thick flowers hanging from every branch. What a strangely pretty world, Coran thought, and his hand was already halfway up to the lock of his helmet, when Lotor's voice roared in his communicator.  
  
"Don't!" Lotor yelled, having turned just in time, "Leave your helmet and gloves on! This place is extremely dangerous!"  
  
"Why?" Coran asked, but obeyed nevertheles. Lotor shot an angry glance at him and headed straight into the bushes without any explanation. What is wrong with him, Coran thought absently, still not over the beauty and peaceful richness of the surrounding flora. Coran followed Lotor into the bushes, pushing away the incredibly soft, thick, juicy leaves as he progressed. In the bushes, they started crawling, slower as they got forward. Finally, Lotor spoke again over the communicator.  
  
"Here," he said. "Come forward, but be very careful. Try to make less noise!"  
  
I am an old man, Coran wanted to say, but he crawled forward in silence. When he reached Lotor, he lay down on his stomach, parted the bushes in front of him and went speechless with shock.  
  
In front of him, bare meters away, on a small meadow on a hill, Zarkon was sleeping, one leg tucked under him and the other one stretched out, the huge two-toed foot bare. He was hugging Haggar, their limbs intertwined and his face buried in her neck. Haggar was sleeping, too, her cheek pressed to Zarkon's head ridges, her arm wrapped around his neck. The Black Lion stood over them, mute and motionless, its eyes switched off, one window shield broken; vines have already covered its legs almost completely. Its huge body served as a roof, protecting Zarkon and Haggar from sun and rain. Zarkon's armor was gone, he was now naked apart from knee-long pants, and Haggar got rid of her numerous cloaks, too, remaining in what looked like a sleeveless underdress. They lay on a pile of leaves, what has been Zarkon's cloak was now serving as their bedsheet. Butterflies kept landing on the lion's claws and flocking away again like colourful flying petals, but people were sleeping tightly, wrapped around each other and oblivious to anything around them.  
  
The whole scene was so crazy, so impossible that Coran had to shake his head to make sure he was not hallucinating. He turned towards Lotor to ask for explanations, but his careless movement broke a dry branch under his elbow with a crack. Zarkon opened his eyes immediately and sat down, his eyes still dozed, but he looked around himself warily. Both Lotor and Coran froze.  
  
Haggar moaned, turned to the side and stretched her arm to touch Zarkon.  
  
"What's wrong, honey?" she mumbled. "Are you too hot?"  
  
"No," Zarkon answered, "I think I heard something."  
  
As untypical as it was for him, the wariness already disappeared from his stance. He looked down at Haggar fondly.  
  
"Oh Zarkon, you always hear something and then it turns out to be an animal. Come here!" Haggar pulled Zakon back down and he obeyed readily. Now they lay facing each other, ther foreheads touching.  
  
"Good morning, my love," he murmured, rubbing the tips of their noses. "How did you sleep?"  
  
"Nice," she smiled back and cupped his cheek. "I had a weird dream, though. About our thingy."  
  
Both of them looked up at the lion's belly above them.  
  
"Our thingy..." Zarkon said slowly. "What did you see, honey?"  
  
"Oh, it was a scary one. You and the thingy were one and the same, don't ask me how that's possible. He, I mean you as him, could fly and run like an animal and shot light from its mouth. I was there, too, but only watching you from aside. You were fighting some purple cloud, you and others like you."  
  
"This is really a weird dream, " Zarkon agreed. "Others like me... I think I would have known if there were others like me... Though the thingy does look like an animal, strange how I never noticed that before."  
  
"It was scary, too," Haggar's voice suddenly sounded whimsical. Zarkon immediately hugged her tighter.  
  
"Don't be, my love," he whispered into her ear. "I won't let anything happen to you."  
  
Haggar sighed and hugged him back.  
  
"How did you sleep, darling?" she asked.  
  
"I always sleep well." Zarkon answered, smiling.  
  
"You do everything well, including sleeping," Haggar laughed, and Zarkon grunted and rolled his eyes before they shared a seemingly endless lazy kiss.  
  
"I love you so much," Zarkon exhaled after they finally broke it. "You beautiful, stunning being, my Honerva!"  
  
Haggar... no, Honerva, grabbed him, pressing herself closer, and kissed him passionately again.  
  
"My heart," she whispered between kisses, "my love, my precious..."  
  
They shifted on their primitive bed, and Coran had to avert his eyes. The whole scene was so unnervingly impossible, so private and tender that Coran felt uneasy. Never ever had he seen Zarkon or Honerva that affectionate. Not even before... before everything. Let alone they way they were after he emerged from his cryosleep... Coran turned towards Lotor and was shocked for the second time. The prince was watching his parents closely, without taking his eyes off them, but his face was so desperate and sad that Coran's heart contracted.  
  
"You can look," the prince said bitterly. "I have been watching them for two days, they never have sex. It's like the affection is there, but the libido is gone."  
  
"Lotor, what is happening? Are those... our Zarkon and Honerva? How does he remeber her name, you told us he forgot everything about his private life before the rift accident? How could they forget what the Lion is?"  
  
"I don't know," Lotor moaned. "I have no idea anymore. This is definitely our lion, see the scratch from the last battle? But maybe these aren't our people? Maybe going through the rift altered them? They seem to remember their relationship, but they forgot everything else, and they have gotten very passive... All the time I've been watching them... all they do is eat, sleep and...(Lotor frowned) fondle like this... I think there is some kind of drug in the air or water that is affecting their mood, that's why I don't want you to take off the helmet. But it doesn't matter, Coran, why can't you understand it! I came here to take her back, but even here he found her before me! Now I could fight and kill him, I could murder him right now if I wanted to, but it is too late, she would try to protect him! She is back in his claws, he has her soul again, that's the problem!"  
  
Coran looked back on the meadow, where Honerva was now sitting on top of Zarkon, trying to tickle him. Claws? What is in this boy's head?  
  
Suddenly, Zarkon stopped resisting the tickle and pressed his ear to Honerva's stomach.  
  
"You are hungry," he said with a worried expression. Honerva smiled in a way Coran has never seen her smile before, freely and happily, like a child.  
  
"A bit," she answered. "But it can wait if you aren't yet."  
  
"Of course it can't wait!" Zarkon exclaimed, straightening himself. "What would you like, my darling? Berries?"  
  
Honerva let him go and fell back onto the bed, spreading her arms like a sea star.  
  
"Nah," she exhaled, "I'm rather in the mood for fish. What do you think?"  
  
"Fish sounds nice," Zarkon agreed. "Which fish?"  
  
"A big one, like you," Honerva giggled, and Zarkon answered her laughter, looking down at her.  
  
Seeing them laugh together was disturbing. Appearence-wise, they didn't change one bit, the scar was still disfiguring Zarkon's face, the galra's lips sunken, Honerva's hair white and hands wrinkled. And yet they didn't seem to notice what they were, their behaviour resembled that of careless young lovers or even children, playing outside in summer.  
  
"We really should move to the lake," Honerva said. "This way we won't have to walk there all the time."  
  
Zarkon giggled and grabbed her by the waist playfully.  
  
"You don't walk there anyway, you ride," he mused, pulling her up. "What do you care?"  
  
Honerva laughed, too, and tried to kick him, but he managed to dodge.  
  
"I am thinking about you, you ungrateful man! " she exclaimed. "But you are right, the soil there is too moist anyway, sleeping will be unpleasant."  
  
What is happepning here, Coran asked himself again, there is no way these are Zarkon and Honerva he knew...  
  
"Big harpoon for a big fish from a big lake," Zarkon said, standing up and starting to scrabble through what seemed to be a self-made weapon rack, filled with primitive spears and axes.  
  
"For the big man," Honerva laughed, pulling a bag from the side of the bed and checking its contents. Zarkon gave her a way too fond glance.  
  
Finally, Zarkon pulled out a huge harpoon, allmost half of his height, with a knife attached to it's tip. The knife was galran, it must have been part of Zarkon's armor.  
  
"I wonder where's my backpack," Zarkon said a little too loudly into the air, kneeling in front of the bed. Haggar giggled again and jumped onto his back with grace of a predator cat, wrapping her skinny brown legs around his waist.  
  
"Oh, there it is," Zarkon laughed, standing up and turning his head to look her in the eyes. "Are you comfortable, darling?"  
  
"Yes, my blessing," Honerva answered enthusiastically, brushig her fingers over his neck. "Let us go!"  
  
They exchanged one more too long smooch and Coran saw them disappear in the bushes.  
  
"Lotor, there is no way these are our Zarkon and Honerva," he said to Lotor.  
  
The prince uttered a shriek.  
  
"Of course they are!" he exploded. "This is our lion, and over there is my father's armor, I went through their things already, these are all their belongings, I recognized them!"  
  
"Honerva I knew would have never behaved like this. Not even under drugs. She... she never was the most affectionate woman, and she always needed to do something, study, read, occupy her mind somehow. Honerva I knew would have never lay around like that, on a primitive bed, and cuddle with Zarkon all day. And Zarkon I know wouldn't ever keep his guard so much down or be so aimless, for that matter. He always had a goal to achieve!"  
  
"Well, no, these are not entirely my parents as I knew them in our reality, but they were also not the same people you knew before you were frozen in the cryopod, right?"  
  
Coran exhaled.  
  
"Yes and no. People I saw after being reawakened and people I remebered from before weren't that different after all. Their basic drive has stayed the same, their way of treating the world didn't change. Here, I can hardly recognize them! Lotor, I need to watch them more."  
  
Lotor sighed and waved to Coran to follow him, as he stood up and headed in the same direction where Zarkon had just disappeared.  
  
"Whatever this drug is, it affects every inhabitant of this planet, and it has something to do with quintessence," Lotor told him on the way. "If I understand correctly, it takes away the aggression, this is why everything looks so strange here. The evolution had stopped on its most primitive stages because no one wants to fight for survival. They don't have mammals, only invertebrate, insects, fish and some smal reptilians, though I am no biologist to tell them apart properly. Everyone is a vegetarian here, and they are all really lazy and passive. You grab a frog, and it hardly even wiggles! Seems like absence of aggression also took some existential drive away from them.... Only the plants seem to be unaffected, they do fight for survival, my guess would be because they have no proper nervous system and are therefore immune to the drug."  
  
The lake was surrounded by even thicker bushes, so by the time they lay down on their stomaches again, Coran was already sweaty and panting. The big lake turned out to be more like a big puddle - huge, yes, going to the horizon, but also flat and shallow, its water black and still. Zarkon has already taken the fishing position. He was lying on a branch of a dead tree that grew near the lake, harpoon in his hand, watching the water surface attentively. In the meantime, Honerva was gathering wood to make fire. She slid between trees like a tiny ghost, making almost no noises. After she had enough, she lit the fire using stones and dry grass from the sack she brought and lay on her back, casting her arms aside and started staring blankly into the sky. Her dress got lifted from her movements, baring half of her skinny thighs, but she didn't seem to care. She moved her arms absently over the soft grass, letting it slide between her fingers. Her forearms were covered with a net of small and big scars, and there was another one on her left leg that looked really bad, as if a grenade exloded near her and tore half of her calf off.  
  
For some time, there was no movement at all, Zarkon frozen on the tree, Honerva spread out on the grass. Then, suddenly, Zarkon threw the harpoon and immediately pulled the rope. Something huge was writhing in the lake, sending circles on the surface. Honerva jumped up and uttered a screeching motivational cry. Zarkon pulled whatever he caught out onto the land and cut through its spine with one trained movement, then they took it towards the fireplace. It was a weird-looking creature, like a fish, but with too big and strong flippers that almost resembled legs and a broad toothless mouth. Zarkon started cutting the flesh off, piece by piece, giving it to Honerva and letting her arrange it in the coals of the half-extinguished fire. The worked in silence for some time, until Honerva spoke again.  
  
"You cut its head off so skillfully," she said. "You must have done it before. Before we came here, I mean."  
  
Zarkon shrugged.  
  
"Maybe," he said. "I don't know. I know I was killing a lot, but I don't remeber why."  
  
"Maybe you were a fisherman?" Honerva giggled.  
  
"No, I don't think it was fish..." Zarkon said slowly, stopping his work. "Honerva, whoever it was, I think they fought back."  
  
"Fought back?" Honerva seemed genuinely surprised. "Why?"  
  
"Because they didn't want to die."  
  
"Hmm, I never thought about it from that perspective," Honerva said, looking puzzled. "They must want to livem that's true... Why don't fishes fight, then?"  
  
"I don't know, but each time I catch one, its lack of resistance makes me uneasy," Zarkon said, frowning.  
  
Honerva moved and leaned onto him, hugging him by the waist.  
  
"Don't be, sweetheart," she said. "Maybe fishes don't even understand that they are dying. They don't have a mind, you know?"  
  
Honerva's touch made Zarkon smile immediately.  
  
"Must be that, honey. You are the smart one, after all."  
  
Honerva huffed.  
  
"Oh yeah, trust me, dear."  
  
They started kissing again, so Coran looked to the side, his thoughts in a disarray.  
  
"See, they don't remember anything clearly, but their memories are definitely there, and they manifest in these ideas and dreams," Lotor's voice sounded in Coran's ears once again. "I think they forgot everything but their relationship the same way they forgot their love when they were poisoned with quintessence for the first time. We know that there is a way to make them remember, but should I do that? Once their personalities are back, no reality barrier will stop them from returning and trying to regain their empire. Given that they are free from that drug, of course."  
  
Coran watched Zarkon and Honerva eat the baked fish, feeding each other, exchanging occasional kisses and giggling, and tried to picture them the way they were before. Yes, they will be back, he thought, and in return for this humiliation, they will plunge our universe into another war. Quiznak knows how it will end.  
  
"I couldn't care less for him, but I can't just leave her here like that!" Lotor whispered. "I can't live knowing that she is rotting on this forsaken planet in this vegetative state, immortal yet weak-minded, only interested in smooches and naps! She is so much more than that! She could help me rebuid the galra state!"  
  
Coran didn't to know if he should say it or just keep silent. He didn't find Zarkon or Honerva weak-minded, just blissfully ignorant and careless. Moreover, the truth will no doubt hurt the boy greatly, didn't he suffer enough?  
  
"Coran, you are a wise man," Lotor whispered, "Tell me what to do to make her forget him! Without his influence, I could..." his voice broke.  
  
No Coran had no choice but to speak up.  
  
"Lotor, my dear boy... What your parents did... this wasn't Zarkon's influence. In fact, there are few people in the universe less influenceable than your mother. Zarkon could never make Honerva do anything against her will. Everything she did was out of deep conviction that this was the right thing. Moreover, nothing Haggar did wasn't something Honerva wouldn't have done if put in the same situation. You know, Alfor respected her greatly for her mighty intellect, but they never became close friends exactly because they had such different morale..."  
  
Lotor shut his eyes.  
  
"She changed the direction of her research for Zarkon," he whispered. "I retrieved her archives. She started as a partcle physicist, he made her engineer his weapons, then study biological effects of quintessence to keep himself immortal!"  
  
"And he also rebuilt a whole planet's economy to accomodate her huge research expences, and gave her a carte-blanche for any kind of inhumane experiments. Lotor, they clicked together like two pieces of a puzzle from the very first day for a reason. Everything they ever did was mutually beneficial! Honerva was a particle physicist on Altea only because she had to choose a specialization. Her interests were always broader than her research field, and Zarkon gave her an opportunity to pursue all of them instead of having to concentrate on one thing to justify research funding. If she had never met him, she probably wouldn't have reached so much in life, but her personality would have stayed basically the same."  
  
Lotor has sunk his head so deep that Coran stopped seeing his face.  
  
"I hate you, Coran," he whispered. "You just killed my hope."  
  
Coran didn't know what to answer, so they both silently watched Zarkon and Honerva finish their meal, extinguish the fire completely and accomodate themselves for a new nap.  
  
"Hug me, my love?" Zarkon murmured into Honerva's ear, and she wrapped herself tightly around his torso and gave him a couple of kisses on the cheek.  
  
"You smell of fish," she said, laughing.  
  
"You too," he answered. "We'll take a bath afterwards."  
  
"My heart, what were we talking about before food?" Honerva asked, looking slightly concerned.  
  
"I don't remember anymore," Zarkon answered sleepily, his head already reasted on her shoulder. "Why? Was it something important?"  
  
"I don't know..." Honerva sighed. "I had a mental glimpse back then, some weird piece of thought, and I forgot it."  
  
"Maybe you'll remember after the nap," Zarkon murmured.  
  
Honerva sighed again and pressed her cheek to his head.  
  
"Maybe," she whispered before relaxing and closing her eyes as his arm wrapped around her, tugging her closer in.

  


"What should I do, Coran?" Lotor asked desperately.  
  
"I don't know, Lotor." Coran answered slowly. "I truly don't."


End file.
